Legally-owned fully-automatic weapons have been used in three crimes since 1934.
So, a person who’s “not a gun guy” has either expended untold thousands of dollars to legally purchase fully-automatic weapons, somehow found them on the black market, or purchased and substantially modified multiple semi-automatic weapons — and did so with enough competence to create a sustained rate of fire. This same person also spent substantial sums purchasing just the right hotel room to maximize casualties. I cannot think of a single other mass shooter who went to this level of expense and planning in the entire history of the United States.
Snip.
He was the multimillionaire son of a notorious bank robber. He had no known history of mental illness, there’s no record of radical politics, and he had no criminal history. It looks like his first crime was the worst mass murder in American history, and ISIS is still trying to take credit for his attack. These facts are unique, to say the least.
Alburn Edward Blake, who was 60 when he shot up a Wendy’s, might be the closest comparison shooter. But Blake already had a long history of weird behavior and mental instability (like legally marrying a women who he had never met and who wasn’t present during the ceremony).
“Responding to the call of [Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi] to target the states of the Crusader alliance, and after careful observation of gatherings of the Crusaders in the US city of Las Vegas, one of the soldiers of the caliphate (Abu Abd al-Bar al-Amriki, may Allah accept him) lay hidden armed with machine guns and various ammunition in a hotel overlooking a concert,” it said.
“He opened fire on their gathering, leaving 600 killed and injured, until his ammunition was finished and he departed as a martyr.:
Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, immediately called both for more gun control, as well as defeating a bill under consideration to make suppressors more readily available for shooters. This piece explains why that position is bunk. “An automatic weapon creates so much heat that it rapidly deteriorates the effectiveness of sound suppression (or simply melts it).”
Indeed, it’s part of the usual liberal push for disarming law-abiding citizens. “They are interested not merely in stopping mass shootings, but limiting gun ownership.”
If Paddock wasn’t working for the Islamic State, and absent some reason showing up in his autopsy (ala Charles Joseph Whitman’s brain tumor), his motivation for meticulously planning and perpetrating the largest mass shooting in American history (with a death toll at 59 as of this writing) seems unfathomable.
An active shooter attacked a country music concert from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas, leaving over 50 dead. Shooter has been identified as “64-year-old Stephen Paddock,” a local, and has been confirmed dead. Police also have his girlfriend/companion/whatever in custody.
Video and witnesses indicate he was firing some sort of fully automatic weapon.
The MO fits the jihadi profile, and the Islamic State called on followers to attack Las Vegas months ago, but Paddock appears to be a 64-year old white guy, which doesn’t fit the usual pattern.
Update 3: Death till 58, FBI says not international terrorism involved, Islamic State doubles down on Paddock being one of theirs, he was reportedly a high-stakes gambler, and his father was a bank robber on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.
That’s the New York Post headline, and who are we to improve on the experts?
The disgraced ex-congressman broke down crying as he was sentenced to 21 months in prison Monday for convincing a high school student to undress and touch herself via Skype in 2016.
“This was a serious crime. It’s a serious crime that deserves serious punishment,” Manhattan federal Judge Denise Cote said as the convicted sext fiend dropped his head into his hand and wept.
After the courtroom cleared, Weiner sat crying in his chair with his lawyers patting him on the back. His mom also sat crying on the bench behind him, sitting next to Weiner’s brother Jason and Weiner’s dad.
Far be it for me to kick a man while he’s down—
Ha! Just kidding! It’s Anthony Weiner we’re talking about here! He deserves to be kicked.
Repeatedly.
What sort of sex fiend brings his mother to sit next to him at his sentencing hearing? And crying, when he went in knowing he had already been convicted, when he’s getting only a fraction of the sentence he could have gotten, just bespeaks what a pathetic little weasel he is.
It would be best for the nation for Weiner to do his time and then disappear from sight. It would be best for the Republican Party for Weiner to immediately announce he’s running for office again upon his release (or even before). But I suspect Democrats will simply have to find a way to lose elections without having Weiner in the public spotlight.
100% of Puerto Rico is without power following Hurricane Maria.
Obama Administration official Samantha Power asked for over 260 unmaskings of American citizens. “She continued to seek identifying information about Americans caught up in incidental surveillance right up to President Trump’s inauguration.” (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
“House IT Worker At Center Of Scandal Allegedly Abused Three Muslim Women.” “Multiple women in relationships with Imran Awan, the indicted former IT aide for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, have recently called Virginia law enforcement and alleged being abused by him, police reports obtained under Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act show.”
“The mainstream media failed to see the rise of Donald Trump in 2016. Now it’s overlooking another grassroots movement that may soon be of equal significance— the growing number of liberals “taking the red pill.” People of all ages and ethnicities are posting YouTube videos describing “red pill moments”—personal awakenings that have caused them to reject leftist narratives imbibed since childhood from friends, teachers, and the news and entertainment media.”
“Evergreen State College has settled a tort claim against it from embattled Professor Bret Weinstein and his wife, Professor Heather Heying, for $500,000, according to an email sent to faculty Friday evening.” (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Article on the decline of NFL ratings offers and explanation in the comments section: “One after another, cogent, thoughtful comments clearly stating the exact reason that life long NFL fans have turned off the TV, dropped their cable subscription, and moved on.” Sample: “There will be no NFL at my house until the employment of players that disrespect our flag and anthem is terminated.”
“Scientists create world’s first ‘molecular robot’ capable of building molecules.” No indication these 150-atom “robots” can contain programming or self-replicate, so we’re still a long way from K. Eric Drexler’s nanotechnology…
Having been busy with Stuff and Things, Dwight beat me to the punch on the last news on the upcoming corruption trial against State Democratic Representative Dawnna Dukes. But the latest revelation is a doozy:
As they prepare for state Rep. Dawnna Dukes’ corruption trial next month, Travis County prosecutors are prepared to present evidence that she showed up to work at the Capitol impaired, hid a cellphone from investigators and spent more than $51,000 on an online psychic.
At least with regular graft, you can understand how the corrupt pol benefits. Blowing $51 grand of taxpayer money on Miss Cleao just adds insult to idiocy.
More of Dukes’ Greatest Hits:
In other “extraneous acts” listed in the filing, prosecutors say Dukes:
Was absent for roll call 65 percent of the time during the 2017 legislative regular session, and 36 percent of the time in the special session.
Responded to a search warrant for her cellphone by providing investigators a phone that did not match the identification number on the phone they had requested
Was noticeably impaired while trying to perform legislative duties at the Capitol and showed up late to a House Appropriations Committee hearing on March 29, stating, “I know I’m talking a lot. I’m full of morphine and will be headed out of here soon.”
Agreed to a contract with the Austin school district for her company, DM Dukes and Associates, to provide business evaluations but subcontracted the work to a consulting firm. The district paid Dukes $514,224 from May 2015 to March 2016.
Arrived late to court settings on June 30 and Aug. 21. Judge Brad Urrutia threatened to hold Dukes in contempt if she does it again.
Failed to submit in a timely fashion both a campaign finance report before the 2016 election and a 2017 personal financial statement. She was fined $1,000.
It’s a veritable buffet of bad behavior, and I look forward to Dukes appearing on Most Shocking: Legislators Out of Control.
Greetings, and welcome to another Friday LinkSwarm! Cleanup from Harvey and Irma continues apace, and there was another London jihad terror attack.
Bomb attack on a London tube train injuries 20, but no reported deaths. “Officers believe that the blast on the train at Parsons Green, southwest London, was caused by an improvised explosive device and hundreds of detectives are now investigating with the assistance of MI5.” More west than southwest, I would say, since it’s north of the Themes and south of Earl’s Court.
Houston City Councilman Dave Martin, who represents hard-hit Kingwood, had a message for the public about the American Red Cross.
“I beg you not to send them a penny,” he said at Wednesday’s council meeting. “They are the most inept unorganized organization I’ve ever experienced.”
In part of a broader rant that also roped in a perceived lack of assistance from his native New Orleans (“Send me your darn trucks, Mitch,” he said, a plea for the Big Easy’s mayor, Mitch Landrieu, to send waste trucks westward to haul off storm debris), Martin said local folks opened shelters and gathered water and supplies to help his northeastern suburb’s evacuees.
“Don’t waste your money,” said Martin. “Give it to another cause.”
How many times must a gay Democratic mayor be accused of child sexual abuse before resigning? Judging by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray, the answer is evidently “five.” Edited to add: Forgot to mention (as Dwight does in the comments below) that Murray was a member of Illegal Mayors Against Gun Owners.
Speaking of prominent Democratic office holders who are sex offenders, Anthony Weiner is arguing he doesn’t deserve to go to prison because it’s not his fault that those darn sexy 15-year-olds keep attracting his attention and taking advantage of his sickness. See Anthony, the thing is, when normal men receive a message like “High! I’m nubile jailbait!”, we ignore it because we’re: A.) Not perverts, and B.) Not complete morons. But only the dimmest, stupidest, sickest pervert would fall for that crap when he lives under a media microscope and after it’s already ruined his life.
The Awan family Democratic House member data breach gets murkier:
On April 6, at midnight, in a small room once used as a phone booth on the second floor of the Rayburn House Office Building, a Capitol Hill Police Officer doing his security rounds discovered evidence that will possibly reveal one of the the biggest security breaches involving House Democrats by the Awan family, a group of entrusted IT staffers, according to court records, police reports and news reports.
In the small room, the U.S. Capitol Police found a laptop computer registered to Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, a Florida Democrat and former DNC chairwoman. Wasserman-Schultz had been fighting authorities for months to return the laptop, that she once claimed was not hers.
What’s more concerning, say senior House officials who spoke to Circa, is that Imran Awan was also allegedly transferring files – including documents and emails – of House Democrats to a secret server connected to the less secure House Democratic Caucus. The organization was then chaired by Rep. Xavier Becerra, who left Congress in January after being sworn in as the Attorney General of California.
The Daily Caller’s Luke Rosiak was the first to break the story and last week Rosiak reported Wasserman Schultz’s IT staffer, now indicted Awan, is believed to have planted her laptop in the Rayburn office room, along with his Pakistani ID card, copies of his driver’s license and his congressional ID badge. Awan also left behind letters to the U.S. attorney.
Awan apparently wanted the evidence discovered, according to a Capitol Hill police report on the matter.
Officials are now asking the question of why the computer was left but the answers remain elusive.
“There is no reason to accommodate all the members data on one server and one that was apparently hidden,” said the Senior House official. “Why didn’t Xavier Becerra know this because it happened on his watch? Each member had their own server to protect against this and Awan intentionally tried to hide what he had done from investigators.”
Becerra’s office did not return phone calls for comment.
The House official told Circa that Awan was also allegedly uploading “terabits of information to dropbox so he was possibly able to access the information even after he was banned from the network.” The official said there is a need for a full congressional investigation on the matter.
“I think this may lead to information as to who really accessed the DNC server – everybody talks about Russia – but look at the access (Awan) had and potentially those emails could have been sold,” the House official added.
“The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Thursday that will provide $1.2 trillion to fund the government past Sept. 30, and will allocate $1.6 billion towards President Donald Trump’s border wall.” This is why I don’t freak out over all the reports of President Trump’s reported amnesty deal with Democrats. It’s not that I trust Trump, it’s that I have no interest in watching the magician make flourishes with his left hand. If such an amnesty actually approaches the voting stage, then I’ll worry. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
Still, President Trump would do well to heed Kurt Schlicter’s advice and not let Chuck Schumer play him for a fool. “What we saw isn’t the art of the deal. This is the art of being suckered.”
Democrats are intellectually lazy. Decades of demonizing conservatives failed to win the last election. Name-calling won’t win votes. Racist, sexist, even Nazi, no longer have any meaning thanks to overuse.
If Democrats want to win again, then they will have to sell their ideas, not their skin color, their sex, or any other superficiality.
It should be apparent, but evidently is not to antifa members and leaders, that the United States, despite Donald Trump being president, is not in a comparable situation to that of Weimar Germany on the eve of Hitler’s ascension to power…Leftist violence in the 1930s in Germany led many to support the Nazis in the hope they would put an end to the continuing street brawls and violence. Today, the antifa left may even help to get Donald Trump reelected in 2020.
In a poll of possible Democratic candidates for 2020, Bernie Sanders has a commanding lead over— [At this point a lynch mob broke into the writer’s house to wreck terrible vengeance upon him for mentioning the 2020 presidential election more than three years out.]
Camille Paglia says that transgender activists are committing child abuse by advocating “sex change” surgery for children.
In sex-reassignment surgery, even today, with all of its advances, cannot, in fact, change anyone’s sex. You can define yourself as a trans man or a trans woman or one of these new gradations along the scale, but ultimately every single cell in the human body, the DNA in that cell remains coded for your biological birth.
Russian company develops anti-riot truck that’s like a moving battlement. Looks like it would be adept at crushing pro-democracy protestors and Antifa equally.
With Hillary Clinton’s forthcoming book on why she lost the 2016 President election, How I F*ck*ed UpDeplorables 1 Me 0Who Knew Wisconsin Was a State?What Happened (Amazon link provided for those who have a crying professional need to buy the book or an unquenchable thirst for schadenfreude, because let’s face it: that thing has “massive stacks of remainder copies” written all over it) in the news, I guess it’s high time to do another Clinton Corruption update. Once again we ask the eternal question: How can we miss you if you won’t go away?
Though there is this: “Clinton: ‘I Am Done With Being a Candidate.” From your lips to God’s ear…
Looking for a handy primer on Clinton’s EmailGate scandal? Judicial Watch has produced this 28 page primer based on a recent panel discussion featuring Tom Fitton and Michael Bekesha of Judicial Watch, former U.S. attorney Joe diGenova and reporter Jason Leopold. Some excerpts:
We found out that as secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton had not gone through the classified email training that was required by presidential executive order, and by federal law We asked for the records of the training. The State Department gave us a “no records” response. So, that’s yet another area of the law where Mrs. Clinton didn’t have to follow the rules.
But let’s get back to the emails themselves. We found a nearly five-month total gap in Mrs. Clinton’s emails. And keep in mind: these are in the emails she decided to turn over. We also found that one key State Department official did not want a written record of issues about the Clinton emails. There’s an email talking about keeping this Clinton email discussion “offline” because this Freedom of Information Act official knew that the emails would be subject to disclosure under the Act.
And now, let’s talk about the so-called personal emails versus government emails: If Mrs. Clinton had been at the State Department and was doing things right, she could have set up a lunch date with her daughter and then deleted the email. But, once she decided to leave government, she could not take any of those existing emails with her. Yet, that is what she did. All of those emails are the government’s property. And, that’s the issue right now.
Snip.
The purpose of the private email server was to destroy history. Hillary Clinton wanted to hide, delete, evade, and prevent the disclosure of official government activity. The way she did it and the people who did it with her, who lied to federal courts about whether or not they had information, is a crime. There were crimes committed in front of Judge Sullivan in the form of false statements, and, ultimately, that will be part of the criminal case that the Justice Department has to review.
If you still want to know the EmailGate skinny, it’s worth reading the whole thing.
Former Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin used her personal email account to transmit classified documents and coordinate favors for Clinton donors, according to emails obtained by Judicial Watch Wednesday.
Judicial Watch obtained the documents as part of a lawsuit filed after the State Department failed to respond to a March 2015 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The newly-obtained documents include 91 Clinton email exchanges that were not turned over to the State Department, contradicting Clinton’s claim that, “as far as she knew,” she had turned over all of her government emails.
The emails reveal multiple instances in which Abedin used her personal account to send and receive classified documents as well as arrange personal favors for Clinton donors and political allies on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s behalf.
Snip.
In one particularly blatant example of nefarious activity, Miguel Lausell, a Puerto Rican Telecom executive and donor of over $1 million to the Clinton Library, requested through Clinton Foundation executive Doug Band that a specific candidate be considered for the U.S. ambassadorship to the Dominican Republic. The following day in April 2009, a Clinton aide passed Lausell’s message to Clinton’s special assistants and instructed them to “make sure there is a response.” It remains unclear whether the person in question received the ambassadorship as the name is redacted.
In a similar example of preferential treatment toward Clinton donors, the managing director of left wing fundraising organization Democracy Alliance, Kelly Craighead, emailed Abedin asking her to “reach out” to an “extremely loyal supporter” who was awaiting a response regarding an application for a senior position at the Department of State.
Excerpts suggest Clinton spends a good bit of her new book bashing Bernie Sanders for have the unmitigated gall to attempt to derail her coronation. The thing is, when Clinton attacks Sanders’ pie-in-the-sky promises as completely unrealistic, she’s correct. The problem is, she and pretty much every other Democrats (and many Republicans) make impossible big government promises that differ only in degree. Plus, it may be unwise to keep bashing the guy you were caught rigging the primary against…
“Former Clinton Fundraiser Says Hillary Should ‘Shut The F*** Up And Go Away.'” Is there anyone actually looking forward to her book other than conservative pundits and possibly Peter Daou?
Speaking of which: “The strange life of Peter Daou,” which sheds some light on Hillary’s #1 Super Sycophant. Not only was he a conscript to a Lebanese Christian militia, he’s the nephew of Fear of Flying author Erica Jong!
As long as we’re here, let’s talk about Verrit, a Daou site boosted by Hillary that was billed as a “left-wing Twitter,” but it’s not even in the same universe. It’s a serious of quotes, with comments. Imagine the cutting edge graphic design of Hypercard, but without all those annoying hyperlinks. Imagine a blog as designed by someone who wanted it to look like a PowerPoint slide, but more boring. The problem isn’t that it’s left-wing, but that it’s absolutely nothing interesting at all.
Pat Condell is back! Here he expounds on the foolishness of importing jihadists into Europe.
“Let’s open ourselves up to the most brutal predatory culture on earth, and let in hordes of unemployable, mostly male fighting age welfare parasites who hate us, and have no intention of integrating. What’s the worst that could happen?”
It would be swell if I could stop leading the LinkSwarm off with hurricane-related news, but Irma is now a class five hurricane headed straight at Florida. If you’re in any evacuation zones, heed authorities, as this does not look like a storm you want to ride out in place unless you have to. Hsoi’s preparedness checklist is also a good thing to go over earlier rather than later.
“¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Obama lawyer who worked on DACA admits it’s probably unconstitutional.” And yes, the ASCII Shrugging Emoji is actually in the headline, so it just wouldn’t have felt honest to leave it out…
One of my stores, we had 300 employees; 140 of them were displaced by the flooding. So how do you put your store back together quickly? We asked for volunteers in the rest of the company. We brought over 2,000 partners from Austin, San Antonio, the Rio Grande Valley. They hopped into cars and they just drove to Houston. They said, we’re here to help. It’s shitty work. For 18 hours a day, they’re going to help us restock and then they’ll go sleep on the couch at somebody’s house.
The bribery trial for New jersey Democratic Senator Robert Menendez gets under way.
Speaking of Iran, they’re amassing new weaponry. “While all eyes are on North Korea, Iran is advancing its weapons technology. The country recently tested and announced the success of their new Bavar 373 long range, mobile, anti-missile defense system. Everything in the system is manufactured in Iran; it requires no support from outside sources.” However, since Iran has (to my knowledge) no wafer fabrication plants to produce integrated circuits, this statement is almost certainly false, at least as far as electronics goes. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
“Bulgaria is projected to have the fastest-shrinking population in the world.” I suspect this is a combination of communism (and its aftermath) sucking, of it wrecking disproportionately more damage on backward, mostly rural countries, and of the general trend in Europe toward a modern, unchurched, welfare state society, with its attendant population decline.
The American Railway union was founded on segregation. “George Pullman famously hired African Americans to work for him. Eugene Debs infamously did not allow African Americans to join his union striking against Pullman’s company.”
President Donald Trump rolls back costly and cumbersome ‘diversity’ regulations. “Obama’s EEOC called for businesses to provide 3,660 different data points about each employee and their pay structure.” Man, it’s like the Obama crew was upset that businesses were allowed to get any work done at all… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
Richard “Oscar Goldman” Anderson, RIP. He also had a role in Forbidden Planet. “Austin’s overseer, Oscar Goldman, was introduced in the first TV movie, played by Darren McGavin.” I had completely forgotten McGavin (another great character actor) originally played Goldman. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
